Why is Holly Valance backing Nigel Farage's Reform? Pop star cheers on Trump and hard-right
Holly Valance's drift to the right wing is still baffling to her half-sister Olympia. After an interview earlier this year, in which Holly described disgraced Donald Trump as "fabulous", the businesswoman told a radio show: "Oh god! Everyone's going to think that that's what I think! And I don't … that's not my opinion on anything."
Ex-pop star Holly, now 41, first found fame in her native Australia when she was cast as rebellious schoolgirl Felicity 'Flick' Scully in Neighbours at 16. Born to Serbian father Rajko Vukadinović and British mum Rachel Stephens, the then-Holly Vukadinović left her home town of Melbourne for soapdom - and soon became a lads' mags favourite in both hemispheres.
After three years in Neighbours, Holly launched her pop career with 2002 hit Kiss Kiss and moved to the UK, finding chart success again with Down Boy and Naughty Girl before losing interest and ditching her record label in 2004. She then made the jump to LA to resurrect her acting career, landing roles in CSI: Miami, Entourage and Prison Break - and appearing opposite Liam Neeson in the 2008 film Taken.
Holly Valance was cast as rebellious schoolgirl Flick in Neighbours
After signing up for a stint in 2011's Strictly Come Dancing, Holly's showbiz career faded away - in the background she was already dating the billionaire property mogul Nick Candy. They'd first met at a dinner party, and Holly made the move back to the UK to pursue their romantic connection. "I didn't know anything about him. I just thought 'Cor, if I didn't fancy you so much, we'd be the best of friends. Instead, I just want to make out with you all the time,'" she told the Daily Mail.
Initially his extreme wealth nearly put her off as it was "just too much" - he gifted her a £20,000 Rolex Daytona watch for her birthday - but her mum convinced her to give the billionaire a chance. "I was used to razzle-dazzle and meeting lots of famous people, but I wasn't used to super-yachts and private jets," she said about adjusting to Nick's lifestyle.
After two years of dating the pair tied the knot in a no-expense-spared three-day wedding extravaganza in 2012, said to cost them £3million. Their £300-a-pop wedding invitations, engraved with Nick and Holly's personal logo, were hand-delivered across the globe to the couple's friends and family, and the 300 guests - including Princess Beatrice, Simon Cowell, David Walliams and his then-wife Lara Stone - were treated to cocktails, a black-tie dinner in Beverly Hills and a private pool party and BBQ.
Holly Valance
Fourteen months later the couple welcomed their first daughter, Luka, followed by their second, Nova, in September 2017. Billionaire Nick - who, along with younger brother Christian is one half of the Candy Brothers - made his fortune buying up London flats in the 1990s, renovating them then selling for a profit.
Life as a mum occupied Holly for several years and she left the spotlight to focus on her family. By the time she reappeared, she'd come out strongly in favour of right-wing politics and was spotted sitting in the front row of Liz Truss' Popular Conservatism convention in January this year.
"The speakers were fantastic. I thought Liz [Truss] was really interesting to listen to, Jacob [Rees-Mogg] for prime minister, the MP for Ashfield [Lee Anderson] was awesome, love a northerner, straight to the point and very sensible," Holly said of the PopCon event.
But what on earth was she doing there? "Everyone starts off as a leftie then wakes up at some point after you start either making money, working, trying to run a business, trying to buy a home and then you realise what crap ideas they all are, and then you go to the right,” she told GB News.
By then, Nick was already a prominent donor to the Conservatives, handing over at least £290,000 to the party. He'd backed Shaun Bailey's unsuccessful Tory campaign to be Mayor of London in 2021 and was pictured at the notorious lockdown rule-breaking Christmas party held at Tory HQ on December 14 2020, hours after London was placed into strict tier 3 Covid restrictions.
The Mirror broke the news of Shaun Bailey attending a lockdown-breaking Christmas party thrown by his staff in 2020 - pictured here is Nick Candy in the grey suit
He and Holly were also firm friends with Boris Johnson and wife Carrie, and attended their Cotswolds wedding party in July 2022 - the one the former Prime Minister accepted nearly £24,000 for from Tory peer Lord Anthony.
But while her husband seems to have more centre-right views - describing Labour leader Keir Starmer in February as a "decent man with good values and morals" - Holly has lurched even further to the right.
In April 2022, the world reacted with a collective gasp when Nigel Farage shared a snap of himself with Holly and Nick posing with ex-president Donald Trump at his Florida beach resort Mar-a-Lago.
Holly and Nick pictured with Trump and Farage at Mar-a-Lago in 2022
And in a podcast with GB News earlier this year, Holly described convicted criminal Trump as "unreal", gushing: "He's fabulous. We were all in Miami and Nick had said to Nigel at some point, 'Look, if you go to Mar-a-Lago, count us in, we want to meet the big guy.' So Nigel was going and we all went together and he was incredible. He gave us an hour of his time in the office, couldn't believe how much time and interest he gave us. He wanted to know all about where we're from, what we do, all about Nick's businesses."
She went on "It was not what I was expecting - I thought somebody a bit more fresh, more cocky and loud, and he was extremely warm, extremely gentlemanly, and very interested in everything that was going on in the UK, asking us all about politics. It was great to have Nigel there, him and Nigel are fantastic friends and I think that's really important for us as well going forward into the next election in America, that we have these friendships."
Asked about Trump's long rap sheet of saying sexist things about women, Holly wrinkled her nose and told his victims to "harden up". "People say nasty things all day - I've had disgusting things said to me. Absolutely disgusting things that would floor you if I said them out loud. Did I cry? No," she scoffed.
Holly was in the crowd for Nigel Farage's announcement on June 3 that he was standing for election as a Reform candidate - she'd apparently been 'whispering in his ear for a long time'
In the same interview she came out in favour of Reform UK, the political party structured as a business that was born from the ashes of the Brexit Party (and before that, UKIP). "Last time I voted Conservatives, next time I'll be voting Reform. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome," Holly noted.
It transpired that she'd also encouraged Farage to stand again - for the eighth time - to win a parliamentary seat, with a pal telling the Guardian she'd been "whispering in his ear for a long time". She was also at Farage's 60th birthday party in April, where she had been "honoured to say a few words" and described the birthday boy as a man of "strength and conviction" who she felt "very protective of". Farage's party also received a hefty cheque from the ex-pop star after he announced this month he was standing.
At one point there was even talk of Holly herself standing for Reform - she and Nigel would have been nearly-Neighbours (ahem) had she been selected for the Basildon and Billericay seat in Essex, but ruled herself out after considering the impact it would have had on her two daughters. Holly added she would "need to be immersed in my constituency and that would take time away from my daughters if I was to do the job right. Which I'm not prepared to do right now."
Holly has handed money over to Reform and cheered Lee Anderson's defection from the Tories
But her work as a poster girl for the right-wing popularist movement is far from over. Just last week she hosted the biggest Trump fundraiser this side of New York, raising more than £2.4million for the shamed Republican candidate. The party was attended by Trump's son, Donald Jr, as well as Farage, who told reporters outside: "It's a Holly party – you can guarantee it's going to be enormous fun."
It's since been reported that Holly has been asked to host more Trump fundraisers as a result, though it might be Reform candidates taking up most of her time. Speaking earlier this year about Lee Anderson's defection from the Tories to Reform, Holly said: "I support anybody who sticks to what they believe in and isn't a turncoat, doesn't do a million flip-flops and U-turns.
"I can have respect for that," she went on. "Even for, like, nutters on the other side, if you stick to what you believe and you keep reiterating that over years and years, I can always respect that. I might not agree with you, but I get that more than the changing the minds and the flipping around. The never having any conviction, not being staunchly for or against something. That's confusing to people and I think people are sick of that."
She added: "Lee's moved from Labour to Conservatives now to Reform. It's really weird because there was this Reform party in Canada in 1993 that ditched the Tories and Canada blew them to smithereens - it's probably what's going to happen here. It's not necessarily that I think we're going to have a Reform government, but it's a means to the next chapter of what things will look like."